Published Wednesday, March 03, 2010 2:15 PM
Updated Wednesday, March 03, 2010 2:15 PM

 

Lowcountry Riffs: Tatum busts another myth

Whoever said money couldn’t buy happiness either never had it or just took it too seriously. With enough money, you can, in fact, buy a lot of happiness, or rather, peace of mind, which is a very clearly marked and well-paved route to happiness.

You just have to do it right.

I have always said I want to be rich, not famous. In fact, I want to be rich and anonymous – very rich and very anonymous. I’ve always admired understatement and enjoy being underestimated. It’s so much more fun when you finally get around to cutting the legs out of the one who took you for granted – and you get to do it on your terms.

Which leads me to another myth to bust: You can have your cake and eat it, too. The trick is to pick a flavor no one else likes.

Everybody thinks fame is a wonderful thing. Yet in this age of Facebook, YouTube, and other such real time outlets for worldwide spontaneous idiocy, fame is not only easy to achieve, it’s even more fleeting than it ever was. And you really can’t spend it, so what’s the point of it?

Fame is far more trouble than it’s worth, but rich and famous is a miserable combination. If you’re rich and famous, then you are never going to be able to properly enjoy your money, or even your time, because people will always be bothering you. People will think that because they know of you, they are entitled to take shameless liberties with your solitude.

No, thanks.

But if you’re rich and anonymous, you can have the best of all worlds. If you are a do-gooder, you can support causes you find worthy without having to fend off unwanted solicitation -- but you do it on your terms since no one would know to call you up and shamelessly beg. You don’t have to put up with incessant interruptions from stockbrokers, real estate agents, charities, widows, orphans, long-lost relatives, anti-cat juggling activists, or any other such Society for the Prevention of Social Ill Du Jour.

More important, if you have the jing and no one else knows it, then you can do whatever you want completely under the radar. You can enjoy the beauty of this world in peace. You can know your friends and family like you for you, not for your money. Or if you happen to be an insufferable jerk, then you can know for sure they only put up with you because you are family, not family with money.

I don’t need all the money in the world, either, just enough to keep me sitting in warm sunshine and sand on the beach pretty much all day every day for the next 30-40 years. One way or another; I’m going to get it.

That’s my cunning plan. I am going to get rich, but you’re not going to know about it. No one is. And in a few years, people may idly wonder whatever happened to that awful, curmudgeonous, chitlin’ circuit writer that used to glower out at the world from here now and again.

He’ll be happily retired at the beach – and no one will ever be the wiser.